[PLUG] HB2892 Update: Bill Moves Forward!

Cooper Stevenson cooper at cooper.stevenson.name
Thu Apr 17 09:27:02 UTC 2003


Friends, 

I am pleased to report that the Department of Administrative Services
submitted HB 2892's amendments and the Bill is moving forward! 

The leadership at the Information Resource Management arm of DAS, in
conjunction with members of Education system and Open Source community,
made a good bill even better. 

Specifically, DAS indicated that if the finer points of IT procurement
guidelines were placed in the Oregon Statute rather than law, the State
could react quickly to the ever-changing technology landscape. 

I find this ideal as it allows the State a greater degree of flexibility
while dealing with IT issues that are both complex and fast moving.

On the technological side with regard to Open Source, the leadership at
DAS really gets it. Over the past six months, DAS has both evaluated and
actively used Open Source in the State's IT infrastructure. Further,
they seem to have an awareness for the potential pitfalls with regard to
sometimes unreasonable software copyrights, patents, and End User
Licence Agreements.

We kept what are perhaps the most critical lines of the bill:

    "(2) For all new software acquisitions, the person or governing body
    charged with administering each administrative division of state
    government, including every department, division,agency, board or
    commission, without regard to the designation given the entity,
    shall consider acquiring open source software products in addition
    to proprietary software products."
    
Did we lose the justification piece? Not really. See, as many of you
know the idea is to _level_ the playing field, not to exclude
proprietary software. If we require justification only in the case of
proprietary software, that could potentially push out a vendor simply
because Open Source would not require justification for procurement. The
truth is that there are justification mechanisms built in to the State
procurement process. Currently, a study must be completed before any
software purchases over a certain monetary threshold are made. 

I am thoroughly impressed with everyone's efforts on HB 2892. I tell
you, when Republicans and Democrats alike sit down in a non-partisan
effort for a common goal, it's a good thing. 

The proof is in the pudding. You may find the proposed amendments to
HB2892 in PDF format here: 

 http://www.mwvlug.org/legislation/oregon/HB2892_proposed_amendments.pdf
    
These amendments refer to the PDF version of HB 2892 here:

  http://www.mwvlug.org/legislation/oregon/hb2892.pdf

HB 2892 is scheduled for a committee work session today.

Meanwhile, if the bill passes into law DAS will define, during a public
rules process, the terms of "open systems" and "open standards." DAS
will hold public hearings and listen to input from the public on these
issues. To participate, one should join the "interested persons" mailing
list. I will provide details for joining the list upon request.

Also, I understand the opposition is _very_ interested in seeing this
bill disappear. It seems they are pressing very hard in their desire to
keep the status quo. As I understand it, one of the members of the
opposition visited Rep. Barnhart's office and "sternly" said, "make this
thing go away."

Let's keep up the support for this bill; we've a long way to go and it's
only through your support that this can be a true success!

Finally, I want to thank all of you who have written with your support
for our efforts. It really makes a difference.

I'll keep you posted.


Very Truly Yours,


Cooper Stevenson
MWVLUG Coordinator
Em:  cooper at cooper.stevenson.name
Www: http://www.mwvlug.org







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